Magnitude has target on back as stars collide in Whitney
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – A lot has changed in the 50 weeks since Magnitude finished 20 3/4 lengths behind Sovereignty in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga. For Magnitude, it’s been a change for the better. For Sovereignty, not so much.
Since that Aug. 23 afternoon, Magnitude has won four of five starts and, having gone 3 for 3 this year, has vaulted to the top of the older male dirt division. Sovereignty has gone 0 for 2 and has some observers wondering if he’s the same horse that powered home impressively in the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes, and Travers Stakes en route to becoming the 2025 Horse of the Year.
Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Whitney Stakes at Saratoga is another opportunity for Magnitude to continue his narrative and Sovereignty to turn back the clock. Of course, this Whitney is far from a two-horse race.
The field includes the 2025 champion 3-year-old filly Nitrogen, whose connections are trying to use their filly’s fondness for Saratoga to enter the Horse of the Year conversation. Baeza will try to rebound from two defeats caused by poor starts. Then there’s White Abarrio, who three years ago won the Whitney and now tries to bounce back from a fourth-place finish in the Stephen Foster.
But wait, there’s more. Antiquarian won the Jockey Club Gold Cup here last year. Tiztastic, the 2025 Louisiana Derby winner, has been Magnitude’s work buddy in the mornings and has hung in pretty good. Forged Steel, who galloped in the Grade 2 Hollywood Gold Cup at Santa Anita, is likely to scratch unless something – perhaps a wet track – causes stablemate White Abarrio not to run.
Magnitude comes into the Whitney on a heater. Following the Travers, he finished second to Baeza in the Grade 1 Pennsylvania Derby and hasn’t lost since. His four-race winning streak started with a victory against older horses in last November’s Grade 2 Clark Stakes at Churchill Downs and continued with a score in the Grade 3 Razorback at Oaklawn Park in February.
Magnitude then beat 2025 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Forever Young in the $12 million Dubai World Cup in March before scoring a front-running victory in the $2 million Stephen Foster where he beat Baeza, Sovereignty, and White Abarrio over a sloppy Churchill surface.
“The way I feel about it is his confidence is at a level equal to his ability right now,” said Steve Asmussen, trainer of Magnitude. “That was never the case with him before. He was always an ultra-talented horse; there was frustration in his lack of consistency. Now, the difference in what we would see or feel differently about him, is that his confidence and intensity are at a better level.”
Magnitude’s two most recent victories have come when he’s dictated the pace under Jose Ortiz. Having drawn the rail Saturday, and with the other main speed in Nitrogen outside of him in post 2, expect, with a clean break, Magnitude to be forward again.
“The Dubai World Cup [breaking] from the inside, with a great jump away from there, to say he was there within himself is an understatement,” Asmussen said.
Sovereignty was the dominant 3-year-old of 2025 winning his last four races, no performance more eye-catching than his 10-length victory in the Travers. He ran the seventh fastest time in the 156-year history of the race.
A fever knocked Sovereignty out of the Breeders’ Cup Classic. His preparation wasn’t ideal for the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap, where he finished second behind White Abarrio. The Stephen Foster, run over a sticky, sloppy surface was his worst race to date.
Trainer Bill Mott believes Sovereignty deserves a mulligan for that performance. His works, at least to Mott, have been similar to how he was working last year – solid, albeit unspectacular.
“I think he’s done enough in his works,” Mott said. “He’s done similar to what he’s done in the past. We haven’t had any major issues with him of any kind since his last race.”
Baeza, who was beaten three times by Sovereignty in 2025, has gotten away slowly in each of his first two starts this year, a third in the Grade 2 Alysheba and a second to Magnitude in the Stephen Foster. As a way to potentially help him in the gate, Baeza will have mattress-like pads, known as quarter pads, surrounding him.
“Usually, it’s for horses that are real goosey and touchy, they feel comfortable in there because it’s soft,” Mott said. “It’ll help him stand up good, he probably won’t be fidgety in there.”
With some good works under his belt, a good start could make Baeza dangerous.
“He’s done well,” Mott said.
Nitrogen looks to become the seventh female to win the Whitney, and the first since Personal Ensign in 1988. She has a 3-for-3 record here, including victories in last summer’s Grade 1 Alabama and this spring’s Grade 1 Ogden Phipps, arguably her two best races. The Grade 1 Spinster at Keeneland in early October is her next objective and this race fits nicely into that schedule.
“She has a lot of strengths,” trainer Mark Casse said. “One is the racetrack, she loves it here. Two, she’s on top of her game and looks better than she ever has. I like the timing, similar timing from the Apple Blossom to the Phipps.”
Prior to his flop in the slop in the Stephen Foster, White Abarrio ran arguably his best race – and he’s won 11 of 27 starts – in beating Sovereignty and Journalism in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap. Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. believes the sloppy track hindered White Abarrio in the Stephen Foster.
“On class alone he should have run to at least the eighth pole,” said Joseph, who would likely scratch White Abarrio if the track came up sloppy Saturday.
Joseph has also entered Forged Steel in the Whitney. If White Abarrio runs, Forged Steel likely won’t and instead be pointed to either the Iselin at Monmouth Park on Aug. 15 or the Grade 1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 22.
Antiquarian stumbled at the break of the Grade 2 Suburban, where he finished fourth, 11 1/4 lengths behind Phileas Fogg on July 4. His victory in the Jockey Club Gold Cup here last summer was arguably his best race and is one reason, according to Todd Pletcher, he is in this challenging field.
In addition to having the favorite in Magnitude, Asmussen will also send out the longshot Tiztastic, who won an allowance at Churchill in May and has been working with Magnitude in the mornings.
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“He’s run 15 times and made $1.7 million, he’s capable,” Asmussen said. “The [2025] Louisiana Derby was a damn good run. He got a pace scenario that allowed for it and he was training like this when he won it.”
The Whitney, which offers a fees-paid berth into the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 31 at Keeneland, goes as race 12 on a 14-race card that begins at 11:45 a.m. and is preceded by three consecutive Grade 1 stakes – the Test, Fourstardave, and Saratoga Derby.
The Whitney will be part of the FOX Saratoga Saturday show, which airs from 5-7 p.m. Eastern.
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